Barbara Dziuk: Children are the pillar of the machine of pro-health activities

There are many areas of health care that are subject to various discussions. Today we are talking about child and adolescent health, and we start the meeting by talking about psychiatry. Child and adolescent psychiatry reform is underway

With the offer to build a strategy for psychiatry came patient organizations. The current and direction was given by people who face various problems on a daily basis. I have great pleasure in creating interdisciplinary teams, which are the pillar of strategy building and later corrective actions. We can create them, but only with experts, because an important element in the dialogue is this group. Today's panel discussions will build the assumptions of good changes, which I think will be reflected in ministerial talks. As it happens, a lot of good things have already happened at women's health congresses. The Men's Health Congress has ensured that we will finally have prevention targeted at men. The pillar of the whole health promotion machinery is children. An investment in the younger generation is an investment that will pay us back in a few years. Building good eating habits and showing that we can control diseases of civilization is a great idea. We need to work together in this field and not create barriers. This congress shows that we are succeeding in everything. Experts can talk about difficult topics and point out problems, but we know that they can be solved.

Let's go back to psychiatry. We are in the midst of a reform that remodels the approach to child and adolescent psychiatry, puts a very strong emphasis on community-based support, and we also know from the other side that these needs for child and adolescent psychiatric care are increasing. There are more and more children in crisis. So this is probably one of the more important challenges today.

We need to realize that we are in the aftermath of the COVID-19 epidemic, which unfortunately left us with a legacy of various emotional disorders, a disjointed young generation that did not know how to cope with the situation because they had no contact with their peers. We are also living in a time of war across our eastern border. This is a situation that frightens many young people. On top of that, there is also the rush of daily life, also heavily attacking the young person. Finding mental balance in all these circumstances is really a very big effort, including for teachers. It should be emphasized that in these efforts there must be cooperation between the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, but also the Ministry of Family and Social Policy. I am observing the development of centers where you can go with your child to get advice from a psychologist or psychiatrist.

One other theme has come to the fore very strongly during today's discussions. This is the need for early diagnosis, the need for access to diagnostic tests, to screening, to molecular testing, and this in turn opens up opportunities for access to this most innovative treatment, especially if we are talking about oncological diseases and rare diseases.

A very good direction has been created in the Sejm during this term. I do not hide the fact that it was a very difficult task. I was afraid of discussions and work on rare diseases, because this is a very difficult field. Nevertheless, the patients convinced us to work in this direction. Well, and what succeeded, the creation of a rare disease strategy, gives the opportunity to finance these solutions of innovative medicine. I am very happy about this. The success of the Ministry of Health is that we have created funding for screening, for example, in SMA. We are pioneers in Europe, we are ahead of other countries. Early diagnosis, early administration of a very expensive innovative drug, creates comfort in life. After that, this young person will hardly be burdened with a life in a wheelchair. Enshrined in all these measures and ministerial decisions is a focus on the needs of the patient to create the best possible comfort in life, and above all to reduce the pain that accompanies all these diseases.

Thank you for the interview.